Helen Cruickshank 1886 - 1975

Contents:

Biography...... Page 1 Contexts...... Page 2 The Ponnage Pool...... Pages 3 - 6 What does Ponnage mean ?...... Page 7 Further Reading / Contacts...... Pages 8 - 11

Biography:

Helen Cruickshank (1886 - 1975) : born in 1886, near Montrose, where she went to school. Summer holidays were spent in Angus, and the landscapes and people of the re- gion and its glens appear in her poetry. After leaving school, she entered the Civil Service, working fi rst in London, and then, from 1912, in Edinburgh where she spent most her life. She joined the women’s social and political union, and campaigned for the suffragette cause. She was also a Scottish nationalist, member of the Saltire Society, and co-founder of Scottish Pen. Helen Cruickshank devoted much of her life to other people, helping and supporting them in various ways. Not only did she care for her elderly mother, she also encouraged the work of Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Hugh MacDiarmid and other writers, and appreciated the work of Violet Jacob and marion Angus. She wrote in English and Scots and published several volumes of poetry between the 1930s and 70s. she died in 1975, but the signifi cance of Cruickshank’s generous contribution to Scottish cultural life still awaits full estimation.

Contexts:

Cruickshank played an important role in the Scottish literary renaissance, not just through her poetry, but by her involvement in the Scottish literary scene throughout much of the 20th century, including her involvement with Scottish PEN.

In 1921, in the aftermath of the First World War, a society called International PEN was established to promote the friendly co-operation between writers in the interests of freedom of expression throughout the world. More generally, its was founded to promote respect and understanding between nations despite the often huge and seemingly impenetrable political differences that exist between them. The acronym PEN stands for poets, playwrights, essayists, editors and novelists. Central among the society’s aims was to create a world community of writers that would emphasise the central role of literature in the development of world culture.

Scottish PEN was founded six years later by Hugh MacDiarmid and a number of other prominent writers including, Naomi Mitchison, Neil Gunn, Edwin Muir, and Helen Cruishank, who was to be the association’s secretary for a number of years. This is a signifi cant moment in Scotland’s literary development since it was a public and international assertion of Scotland’s right to have a distinctive voice and position on the world stage, particularly when many people (including some at home) believed that Scotland’s culture was not suffi ciently different from England’s to merit a separate PEN centre.

MacDiarmid gets much of the credit for all this – rightly, perhaps, since he fought so long and hard to establish a position in the world culture for Scots language and literature. But it says a great deal about the critical shadow that many women writers have existed under for so long that many of them exist as mere footnotes in the history of Scottish writing. It is not even a question of statistics – research has shown that the balance of the numbers of men and women writers is roughly 50-50. But it’s mostly the men whom you fi nd in the anthologies and in the pages of Scottish textbooks. Critical favour has been slow in coming for many Scottish women writers, and although that now seems to be changing for the better we still have to dig quite deep to fi nd anything about Helen Cruickshank.

What we do know is that she was as selfl ess in her devotion to her mother, whom she looked after for 16 years following the death of her father, as she was to the cause of Scottish writing and the support of her fellow writers. She wrote in English as well as Scots and much of her work refl ects the infl uence of her contemporaries – Hugh MacDiarmid and Lewis Grassic Gibbon in particular, to each of whom she dedicated a poem – and a profound connection with the land of her birth. 2 Written By Colin Clark

The Ponnage Pool

. . . Sing Some simple silly sang O’ willows or o’ mimulus A river’s banks alang (Hugh MacDiarmid)

I mind o’ the Ponnage Pule, Mind: remember The reid brae risin’, Reid: red Morphie Lade. Lade: a channel for water An’ the saumon that louped the dam, Saumon: salmon; louped: jumped A tree i’ Martin’s Den Wi’ names carved on it; But I ken na wha I am. Ken: know; na: not; wha: who

Ane o’ the names was mine, Ane: one An’ still I own it. Naething it kens O’ a’ that mak’s up me. Less I ken o’ mysel’ Than the saumon wherefore It rins up Esk frae the sea.

I am the deep o’ the pule, The fi sh, the fi sher, The river in spate, The brune of the far peat-moss, Brune: brown; peat-moss: The shingle bricht wi’ the fl ooer moorland O’ the yallow mim’lus, Flooer: fl ower The martin fl eein’ across.

I mind o’ the Ponnage Pule On a shinin’ mornin’, The saumon fi shers Nettin’ the bonny brutes – I’ the slithery dark o’ the boddom Boddom: bottom O’ Charon’s Coble Ae day I’ll faddom my doobts. Faddom: fathom

The fi rst challenge that faces us with this poem is in the title. What is The Ponnage Pool? Or more specifi cally, what does ‘ponnage’ mean? Is it the name of a place? A geographical 3 feature? Is it enough for us to leave the word alone, assume it’s a place name, like Craigo Copyright 2003 © Scottish Literary Tour Trust. All Rights Reserved. Helen Cruickshank 1886 - 1975

Woods, or Wauchopeside, which have featured as titles of other Scots poems? Certainly our reading of this poem will not be hampered by a lack of comprehension of the word, but it could be interesting to investigate a little and try to shed some light on it.

The poem begins with another poem, a quotation from Hugh MacDiarmid. We know that Cruickshank was a colleague of MacDiarmid, even helped him out of a few tricky situations, and she was a great admirer of his poetry. Using quotations like this has long been a way for poets to recognise a debt of gratitude or admiration for other poets. It’s also partly a clue to their underlying meaning. This would be good place to point out that silly in this case means innocent or humble rather than daft, or stupid; and that simple means plain and unadorned, not dim-witted. It might also be useful to be aware that part of Hugh MacDiarmid’s literary project, once he moved away from writing in Scots, was about calling for a poetry which was rooted in direct experience of the land. In a way it was about ‘getting back’ to Nature – as well as one’s own nature, i.e. that which is innately yours, a poetry with “the outer magic and the inner mystery imaginatively reconciled” (The Kind of Poetry I Want, 1961).

Cruickshank’s poem proper begins with a memory: “I mind o’ the Ponnage Pule”. We notice that the English pool of the title has been rendered into the Scots pule – the language locates the poem in Scotland, and perhaps locates the poet in her childhood when she would have spoken the language quite freely. The memory of the “ponnage pule” is listed along with “the reid brae risin’” and “Morphie Lade”. The fi nal of these three places lets us know for certain that the poem is concerned with a specifi c place, near her home in Montrose, in Angus – very near, incidentally, to the Craigo Woods celebrated by Violet Jacob.

With the “saumon that louped the dam” in line 4, we begin to enter more symbolic territory. Salmon appear frequently in the literature of Scotland – dating as far back as St Mungo and the legend of the ‘fi sh that never swam’ in Glasgow’s city crest – and has its roots in Celtic mythology where the salmon represents knowledge. This salmon jumping the dam is also a real memory from the poet’s youth – but how is it important now? In the next line she recalls “a tree i’ Martin’s Den” – again, trees are powerful symbols of knowledge and wisdom and power. This tree has names carved on it, but the poet tells us in line 7 – “I ken na wha I am.”

This last line of the fi rst verse really alerts us to the major theme of the poem: self- knowledge, identity. The poet uses the present tense ‘ken’ – she still doesn’t know who she is, even as a mature adult. The act of naming is one thing, but self-knowledge goes way beyond that. It is interesting to look at the sound patterning in the poem where we fi nd that, as well as the end-rhymed lines 4 and 7, there are certain other sound relationships – most signifi cantly ‘den’ (line 5) and ‘ken’ (line 7), reinforcing this notion that self- knowledge is something hidden from her, that it is something she had as a child, but has 4 lost somewhere along the way to becoming an adult. Copyright 2003 © Scottish Literary Tour Trust. All Rights Reserved. Helen Cruickshank 1886 - 1975

Indeed, we discover in the fi rst line of the second verse that one of the names on that tree was hers but “naething it kens/ O’ a’ that mak’s up me”. In other words, it’s just a name – and names can tell us nothing of who we are. Interestingly, she asserts in line 9 that she still owns her name. Ownership of name and voice are a central theme in much writing in the latter part of the 20th century. It was a major concern of MacDiarmid and those who followed him to claim ownership of words (or names) in the form of the Scots language. Perhaps it also refers to the fact Cruickshank never married, and therefore never changed her (sur)name.

But, a name is only a name: true knowledge is to be and to do, humbly and simply – to paraphrase the MacDiarmid epigraph – in perfect balance and agreement with one’s environment. Like the salmon, perhaps, that “rins up Esk frae the sea.” And she tells us she knows less of herself, of her nature, than that wild creature. Why is that?

Verse three concerns itself with the multiple identities (or memories, perhaps) of the poet. In this case she identifi es herself with “the deep o’ the pule/ the fi sh, the fi sher/ the river in spate/ the . . . peat-moss/ the shingle . . ./ the martin . . .” – almost, it seems, the entirety of natural phenomena in her childhood environment. How can she be all these things at once? It is a curious extended metaphor and worth exploring.

The list begins with the (unfathomable?) depths of the pool, recalling the uncertainties of the previous verses, but the images begin to surface, literally: from fi sh to fi sher. In the next line she is the “river in spate” – a fl ooding, fast-fl owing rush. The rapid listing of phrases certainly echoes this and the reader is swept forward on a rush of words. There is a growing sense of hope here, of optimism – her identity emerging? From the water, she brings us onto land and “the broon o’ the far peat-moss”, but still there is a note of distance and muted colour. In the next two lines we have “the shingle” which is “bricht wi’ the fl ooer/ O’ the yallow mim’lus” – moving us from dull to bright colour. Furthermore, “mim’lus” recalls the Hugh MacDiarmid quotation at the beginning of the poem and his imperative: “sing/ a simple silly sang”. Is she reacting against this imperative, or writing in accordance with it? Her technique is far from humble or plain. In the fi nal line of the third verse, the poet identifi es herself with “the martin fl eein’ across” the shingle. In the poem at least, she has transcended the darkness of the ‘pule’ and has taken to the air.

In the fourth and fi nal verse, we return to the “ponnage pule” with a repetition of the fi rst line of the poem. What has changed? What has the poet learned on this journey? What have we learned? The poet seems to be facing in a different direction. In verse one she is facing inland. Could that have been a reference to the inward direction of her own work? Looking inwardly at herself? Does it include the culturally introspective work of MacDiarmid and others? By verse 4, the direction she faces is outwards, towards the river where, “on a shinin’ mornin’” she sees “the saumon fi shers/ nettin’ the bonny brutes”. In looking to the salmon, creature of knowledge and the innate wisdom of the wild, we are reminded of the knowledge she tells us she lacks. But the salmon fi shers seem to be able 5 to harness that knowledge easily – is theirs the wisdom of simply doing? Copyright 2003 © Scottish Literary Tour Trust. All Rights Reserved. Helen Cruickshank 1886 - 1975

Finally, the pay-off line: “Ae day I’ll faddom my doobts”. The poet lets us know that the process of self-inquiry is on-going, but that she’ll achieve it “I’ the slithery dark o’ the boddom/ O’ Charon’s Coble.” A different place, altogether. Like “the Ponnage Pool” “Charon’s Coble” at fi rst seems to refer to a specifi c location in the area of her childhood. Certainly, the use of the Scots word coble (a fl at-bottomed river boat used in salmon fi shing) may lead us to that conclusion. ButCharon , in fact, was a fi gure in Greek mythology who ferried the dead souls over the rivers Acheron and Styx (respectively the rivers of woe and hate) into the underworld. A very different bridging place from the ponnage pool. She’ll never “faddom her doobts” except maybe in death – in other words, she’s stopped worrying about it. For now, it seems she is content with the identity she has found as a poet.

Written By Colin Clark

What does Ponnage mean ?

My curiosity about this word was aroused in a couple of ways. Firstly, it looks like an Eng- lish word. Secondly, in the title it seems to act as an adjective – in other words, the word ‘ponnage’ describes the pool in some way. Next, although it is not unknown for place names to use ‘the’, very few actually do (mountain ranges, seas & oceans, some countries – but that’s about it). Finally, why did the poet pick such an unusual word to include in the title? Poets are usually up to something interesting when they put weird words in the title.

So, what does it mean? Unfortunately, none of the usual reference sources are able to help. None of the books I looked at on Scottish poetry mentioned it. Nor did the Concise Scots Dictionary, nor the Chambers English dictionary nor the compact Oxford English Dictionary – not even the internet.

More digging. I mentioned before that ‘ponnage’ looks like an English word – I should have said French. –age is common suffi x which found its way into English from French words like voyage and message. We fi nd it too in words like vicarage and orphanage where it means “house, or place of”.

Now, what about “pon”? It looks like it could be related to the French word pont which ultimately comes from the Latin root pons, pontis meaning bridge (which is where we get pontoon.) The Chambers dictionary gives us the English word pons, also from the same root, which is used in anatomy to mean ‘a connecting part.”

If we’ve followed the right routes here, could ‘ponnage’ mean a bridging place? A place of connections? How does this relate to the theme of the poem? Why did Cruickshank choose such an obscure word to include in the title of the poem? Does it really change our reading of the poem to make such a guess at the word’s meaning? Does it matter if we’re wrong?

Post script Having gone to some lengths to fathom this obscure word, I fi nd out the next day that Tom Scott in the Penguin Book of Scottish Verse (1970) glosses the word as “ferry”. I think I prefer ‘a place of connections.”